Castigation

by Jeff McDargh

patronizing tone like he was talking to a small child or like I was mentally challenged.

  Mocking me, the little fucker was mocking me. I hate to admit it but part of me wanted to walk over and knock the shit out of him but the other part of me was too afraid.

  All my brain kept screaming was to get out.

  Wordlessly I stepped out in to the hall; it seemed even darker than before.

  As I started to make my way towards the stairs I could hear angry foot steps behind me moving closer.

  I tried to move quicker but they were quicker and as I reached the edge of the stairs I could feel hands lots of little hand pushing and shoving. I tried to catch my balance, the railing, anything.

  I don’t remember the fall but the hurt like hell. I landed on my back with loud thud and my head bounced of the old wood floor.

  My arm was twisted at an odd angle.

  “You can’t go.”

  I looked up to where the voice had come from.

  The boy stood at the top of the stairs looking down on me surrounded by other children, children with scared and disfigured faces.

  “Fuck you.”

  The boy jumped from the top of the stairs with a ferocity I wouldn’t have thought possible.

  His hands now claws ripping my shirt open his impossibly long and sharp nails digging into my chest. His grin replaced by that of gnashing teeth as he screamed.

  “I said its fucking time!”

  I managed to get the boys hands loose, my one arm almost useless, flinging him to one side of the room as I scrambled away towards the door and the rain drenched night.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” I screamed. My chest hurt like hell. It felt like it was on fire.

  “You’re only going to make it worse you know?”

  “Make what worse?”

  “The reaping silly.” The grin was back.

  “Kid I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about but I’m getting the hell out of this place.”

  “But you can’t go.” His voice was soft and sweet.

  “There’s something wrong with you and his place.”

  A stabbing pain slammed through my chest.

  “All is as it should be.”

  Small drops of blood dripped down my chest.

  “No it sure the fuck isn’t kid or whatever the hell you are.”

  The pain stabbed its way deeper into my chest. I had to get out. Get out now before whatever he’d done to me took full affect and I couldn’t.

  I finally reached the door; the boys sing song voice echoed off the walls.

  “You’ll be back, you’ll be back.”

  Fire ripped through my chest again as I started crawling down the steps.

  Cold rain poured over me as the world dipped into darkness for just a moment. I could feel myself slipping. I had to hold on. I had to get away.

  The dark void over took me once more.

  When I opened my eyes again I was standing under a tree and everything was bathed in the light of an ever changing red and blue.

  The crash site, I was back at the crash site and I could see two men knelt over my broken body franticly working.

  The emergency lights reflected off something white and point that was stuck in my leg, no not stuck in sticking out of, the bone was sticking out of my leg.

  “Holy Shit…”

  I turned away from the surreal scene of me and my lifeless body hoping if I did it would all go away like a bad dream when something caught my attention from inside the almost totaled SUV.

  Something moved under a blanket of the floorboard of the back seat.

  I stood staring uncomprehending as it continued to move.

  Until a little hand with sparkly pink nail polish finally managed to free itself poked itself up out of the blanket.

  Oh my god I had forgotten. How could I forget?

  Warm tears once again filled my eyes.

  I looked back over at the two men so franticly working on my blood covered body as the bigger man said “Clear” and touched the paddles to its chest.

  Fire ripped through my chest once again.

  Back, I had to get back. I moved to my body. I wasn't sure how to get back in my body but I had to try. I looked back at the car she was almost out now, she couldn't see me like this.

  I put my hands on my chest, nothing happened.

  The smaller man started compressions again; my head lulled back and forth and an odd grunting sound escaped my mouth with each downward push on my chest as he counted.

  "Four, five, six..."

  I could feel it pulling me.

  She was out of the car now; her little face was streaked with tears and grime.

  Please. Please, please, please not like this please.

  I was frantic now. I reached out with my invisible fingers sticking them in my mouth grabbing my bottom jaw and pulled down as hard as I could.

  She was staggering up unseen behind the two EMTs her little yellow dress was soaked through with blood.

  With a twisting pressure I was pulled back into my body gasping in cold air as my eyes flew open.

  Still unseen she bent down and picked up the pair of scissors they had obvious used to cut my shirt open and stepped between the two men and plunged the scissors deep into my neck.

  The two men stared at the girl as she slumped to the ground unmoving then at me then each other in a blank shock trying to comprehend what had just happened.

  A look passed over the face of the larger man.

  "Holy shit it's the girl that's been missing."

  "Than this would be the fucker that took, raped and mutilated all those kids."

  The two men simply watched as the last ember of life faded and finally winked out.

  Pressure, twisting, pulling.

  The soul of the girl moved away slowly down the street.

  Pressure, twisting, movement.

  The room, I was back in the room.

  As the children’s laughter echoed of the walls the boy stepped out of the shadows and looked up at me with that smile.

  "I told you you'd be back."